Bonus Pay

payrollgal

Can you pay selected hourly employees a bonus, say for certain sales or for getting a new account? I have heard from my supervisor that you cannot pay hourly employees a bonus because of discrimination, you can only pay salary employees a bonus. Is this true? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

amwkim

In all of my years in payroll and HR (and there has been a lot :-) )I have never heard of this. I would like to know where your supervisor got this information.

Don D

I agree with amwkim. Never heard of this. I think your supervisor was napping in that seminar.

Shadowfax

Of course you may pay hourly emp/ees a bonus - and on any basis you wish. The difficulty becomes folding the bonus into the base for calculating o/t. Once you are qware you have to add the bonus to the base, no problem.

payrollgal

What are the new regs on the OT status? Does the bonus play into what their wage would be and how do i go about calculating this?

Shadowfax

I will admit I havn't spent much time as yet on the new regs, and particularly how this may be impacted. However, I don't recall seeing anything to change this aspect of the regs - others may be better equipped to answer. And, I havn't had to do this for a long time, but, production bonus, time bonus, attendance bonus, those kinds of things are simply added to the pay period in which they are earned, divided by the # of hours worked, and that is the regualar rate for that period. Emp/ers should be careful to develop these bonus plans so that the bonus payment reflects only one pay period, in order to avoid having to re-calculate reg/o/t rate every few minutes. Bonuses that are absolutely discretionary, that is, just because the e/er is a nice guy (or gal) do not need to be added back in. Howsumever, discretionay bonuses given over a period of time may lose the discretionary status, and create an unintended violation of the FLSA. Check regs 778.100-200

payrollgal

Thanks!!